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Lenovo CEO on Steve Jobs and Apple's Efforts in China
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Lenovo is one to talk considering that the quality of the thinkpads have taken a nosedive ever since they purchased the division from IBM.
Yes, Lenovo should shut their mouths about being afraid of Apple as a competitor in China. Wait, what?
Christ, do some of you even read the articles before you respond or are pro-Apple, anti-everything else responses pre-written into your clipboards?
Lenovo is one to talk considering that the quality of the thinkpads have taken a nosedive ever since they purchased the division from IBM.
Agreed, I used to be a big fan of the IBM thinkpad, but chinese QC has soured my view of them.
One could argue that any industrializing country with a vast and cheap labor pool, a state-planned economy focused on growth at all costs, lacking costly environmental regulations and social safety nets, will experience rapid growth. The problems arise when you begin extrapolating future trajectories based on past performance. If I did that during the late 90s at the height of the tech bubble in the US, I'd have said myself and my friends would all be multimillionaires by now!
The real estate market is floating 1000 miles above earth in a shiny bubble, thanks to massive capital injections from China's $600 billion stimulus. Labor costs are rising (Foxconn?) and manufacturers on the lowest rungs of the value-added ladder, such as footwear and clothing, are already moving to Vietnam and Indonesia. China is still dependent on foreign exports for GDP, keeping its yuan pegged to the USD. It hasn't developed any internationally recognized brands a la Korea and Japan. (Lenovo wasn't widely known until it acquired IBM PCs).
Living here for so many years, one becomes a teensy bit cynical. Nothing is what it seems in China. Most of the breathless gushing news stories in the Western media are coming directly from Xinhua... a state run news agency. But the West just laps its up. Part of it may be the quixotic wish to keep the engines of growth in the world economy revving at top gear, when things are looking gloomy in the west. But yes, it's a big market, one Apple would be foolish to ignore.
China is a communist country... MOST people cannot afford anything
The problem with a communist country is that normal people like you and me have nothing while the government officials and their families have everything.
For example:
I can own a bicycle and live off of the land by growing crops on our farm. Every year, we would be paying "taxes" to the government, leaving us nothing to spare. If we have extras and want to sell them to make a better living, we would be imprisoned for supposedly "making a profit out of government properties."
My neighbor who is a member of the communist party, however, can do whatever he wants and have big mansions with Bentleys and whatnot. No one bothers him... all he has to do is "steal" from the rest of us hard workers.
Been there, done that.
My family, for example, has been badly affected by the communists. My grandparents on both sides were extremely rich people. In 1954 when the communists took over North Vietnam, my grandparents lost everything. They even tried to kill them because rich people were the most influential people. My grandparents were extremely kind to he villagers, so they stood up for them and would not allow the communists to do anything to my grandparents, so they lived to die at their old age instead of being tortured and killed by the communists like other rich people whose villagers can careless about.
I can imagine Chinese communists to have something in that regard... where normal people don't have anything while communist party members steal everything from the people and therefore are extremely rich compared to the rest of the county.
The problem with a communist country is that normal people like you and me have nothing while the government officials and their families have everything.
For example:
I can own a bicycle and live off of the land by growing crops on our farm. Every year, we would be paying "taxes" to the government, leaving us nothing to spare. If we have extras and want to sell them to make a better living, we would be imprisoned for supposedly "making a profit out of government properties."
My neighbor who is a member of the communist party, however, can do whatever he wants and have big mansions with Bentleys and whatnot. No one bothers him... all he has to do is "steal" from the rest of us hard workers.
Been there, done that.
My family, for example, has been badly affected by the communists. My grandparents on both sides were extremely rich people. In 1954 when the communists took over North Vietnam, my grandparents lost everything. They even tried to kill them because rich people were the most influential people. My grandparents were extremely kind to he villagers, so they stood up for them and would not allow the communists to do anything to my grandparents, so they lived to die at their old age instead of being tortured and killed by the communists like other rich people whose villagers can careless about.
I can imagine Chinese communists to have something in that regard... where normal people don't have anything while communist party members steal everything from the people and therefore are extremely rich compared to the rest of the county.
It's interesting he mentions Jobs renowned backstage bad tempers. I really think corporations aren't taking the Chinese market serious enough, good to know Apples moving those stores in, bringing a presence etc.
democratic style countries no different from communist countries
at the end, who can do good for most percentage of population.
it looks like though communist countries are far better than democratic style countires - i am talking only about developing countries ...
yes, think GLOBAL, apple does..............
there is is real life outside sweden you know............. and more sun!
I think I actually have to agree with Lenovo on this one.
Apple obviously is only interested in China for the money. I feel like when they create products, they create for an American market. Obviously they're in it for the money here too, but they spend time to make sure it's a product that we as Americans will love. Then they just take those same products and try to sell them in places like China to rack in more cash.
Good think I live in America
Apple obviously is only interested in China for the money. I feel like when they create products, they create for an American market. Obviously they're in it for the money here too, but they spend time to make sure it's a product that we as Americans will love. Then they just take those same products and try to sell them in places like China to rack in more cash.
Good think I live in America
One could argue that any industrializing country with a vast and cheap labor pool, a state-planned economy focused on growth at all costs, lacking costly environmental regulations and social safety nets, will experience rapid growth. The problems arise when you begin extrapolating future trajectories based on past performance. If I did that during the late 90s at the height of the tech bubble in the US, I'd have said myself and my friends would all be multimillionaires by now!
The real estate market is floating 1000 miles above earth in a shiny bubble, thanks to massive capital injections from China's $600 billion stimulus. Labor costs are rising (Foxconn?) and manufacturers on the lowest rungs of the value-added ladder, such as footwear and clothing, are already moving to Vietnam and Indonesia. China is still dependent on foreign exports for GDP, keeping its yuan pegged to the USD. It hasn't developed any internationally recognized brands a la Korea and Japan. (Lenovo wasn't widely known until it acquired IBM PCs).
Living here for so many years, one becomes a teensy bit cynical. Nothing is what it seems in China. Most of the breathless gushing news stories in the Western media are coming directly from Xinhua... a state run news agency. But the West just laps its up. Part of it may be the quixotic wish to keep the engines of growth in the world economy revving at top gear, when things are looking gloomy in the west. But yes, it's a big market, one Apple would be foolish to ignore.
it seems to me that PRC is becoming more of a capitalist economy (unofficially)? in time the rest shall follow.... the average chinese person will start to reap more benefits as well.....i hope!
Lenovo is one to talk considering that the quality of the thinkpads have taken a nosedive ever since they purchased the division from IBM.
Errr...
Read the following two quoted posts:Basically, JediZenMaster, Lenovo is giving Apple a complement.
I own one of each and concur with you.
One could argue that any industrializing country with a vast and cheap labor pool, a state-planned economy focused on growth at all costs, lacking costly environmental regulations and social safety nets, will experience rapid growth. The problems arise when you begin extrapolating future trajectories based on past performance. If I did that during the late 90s at the height of the tech bubble in the US, I'd have said myself and my friends would all be multimillionaires by now!
The real estate market is floating 1000 miles above earth in a shiny bubble, thanks to massive capital injections from China's $600 billion stimulus. Labor costs are rising (Foxconn?) and manufacturers on the lowest rungs of the value-added ladder, such as footwear and clothing, are already moving to Vietnam and Indonesia. China is still dependent on foreign exports for GDP, keeping its yuan pegged to the USD. It hasn't developed any internationally recognized brands a la Korea and Japan. (Lenovo wasn't widely known until it acquired IBM PCs).
Living here for so many years, one becomes a teensy bit cynical. Nothing is what it seems in China. Most of the breathless gushing news stories in the Western media are coming directly from Xinhua... a state run news agency. But the West just laps its up. Part of it may be the quixotic wish to keep the engines of growth in the world economy revving at top gear, when things are looking gloomy in the west. But yes, it's a big market, one Apple would be foolish to ignore.
+1
1800 million people and counting, and do not exclude india....... but then apple does not sell "el cheapo" symbian OS phone/s. the market is huge and important, only after servicing/satisfying apple's home based consumers.....the US of A
Liu isn't quite an idiot [he does recognise Jobs' genius], but he seriously needs to think before he reveals his company's vulnerabilities and condemns people that way.
As for China eventually replacing the US as a global trend-setter in technology and a take-off in Chinese domestic consumption forcing global tech companies to set their development roadmaps to follow Chinese consumer tastes, I think he's utterly deluded. All the evidence so far is that the Chinese domestic market is obsessed with western style. The notion that a disparate array of nations is going to align with the tastes of one that's utterly alien to all of them is the stuff of megalomaniacal science fiction.
But Lenovo make poor quality legacy products. Netbooks are dead. The iPad confirmed that. So he's completely right to identify Apple as a threat. It's obvious the only thing keeping Apple out of the Chinese market is production capacity. If they're struggling to get phones to the global market, they're not ready to handle a Chinese surge yet. And that surge WILL of course be driven by a Chinese domestic market influenced by global trends - which in the tech world are headed very clearly by Apple.
Apple do seem blessed with utterly flawed CEOs heading the opposition, determined to bleed out in public. The perennially hapless Ballmer has just dumped the Project Pink/Kin thing, Dell has announced two attempted iPad spoilers, neither of which will fly, and Bezos still believes all books are black and white. HP have swallowed Palm, why? we may never know, RIM are sticking with QWERTY keypads, and Cisco thinks an expensive limited use enterprise solution is the answer.
As for China eventually replacing the US as a global trend-setter in technology and a take-off in Chinese domestic consumption forcing global tech companies to set their development roadmaps to follow Chinese consumer tastes, I think he's utterly deluded. All the evidence so far is that the Chinese domestic market is obsessed with western style. The notion that a disparate array of nations is going to align with the tastes of one that's utterly alien to all of them is the stuff of megalomaniacal science fiction.
But Lenovo make poor quality legacy products. Netbooks are dead. The iPad confirmed that. So he's completely right to identify Apple as a threat. It's obvious the only thing keeping Apple out of the Chinese market is production capacity. If they're struggling to get phones to the global market, they're not ready to handle a Chinese surge yet. And that surge WILL of course be driven by a Chinese domestic market influenced by global trends - which in the tech world are headed very clearly by Apple.
Apple do seem blessed with utterly flawed CEOs heading the opposition, determined to bleed out in public. The perennially hapless Ballmer has just dumped the Project Pink/Kin thing, Dell has announced two attempted iPad spoilers, neither of which will fly, and Bezos still believes all books are black and white. HP have swallowed Palm, why? we may never know, RIM are sticking with QWERTY keypads, and Cisco thinks an expensive limited use enterprise solution is the answer.
I think it's time for you to wake up! Your dream world is about to shatter in your face...
In a capitalistic society, you pay taxes like everyone else, but the tax that you pay makes lives easier for those who can no longer work.. such as YOU when you are too old to work.
In a communist society, you pay taxes.. and the money that you pay goes into making the government fatter and if you can no longer work, you die from lack of anything... unless your children and grandchildren can support you.. you're doomed!
I would rather pay taxes now and be taken care of when I'm old than to fatten up the commies...
Aaron, I agreed with the rest of your post, but this is rather inaccurate. Lenovo was created out of the Chinese Academy of Science (who loaned them start-up funds), and is the first Chinese electronics 'firm', created by a mixture of state-assistance and aided by Hong Kong financing in 1984. Their acquisition of IBM's manufacturing division in 2004, including the Thinkpad brand, is when the West first started paying attention - but they were a large multinational well before then.
Let me give some examples about how Apple does not localise the China's market.
1. baidu.com is the biggest search engine in China and iphone/ipad still do not provide an option to make it a default search engine after ios4 update.
2. youtube is blocked in china but the youtube app still comes with iphone/ipad and people can not use it. Apple does not provide any app to replace it.
3. The Chinese Pinyin input became really annoying after the ios 4 update.
4. Apple choose to cut off wifi on the iphones for china rather than adding wapi to them.
Basically, iphone, in China, is a phone that does not give you the search engine you need, does not let you watch videos you like, forces you to use 3G all the time, and annoys you when you type in Characters.
However, iphone 4 is being sold at $1500-2000 recently. iPad is being sold 20% more than the U.S. price and still can be found everywhere.
I can see how better apple products can be sold if they can do some changes (just like they added emoji to japan market) to local markets, not only in China but the world.
1. baidu.com is the biggest search engine in China and iphone/ipad still do not provide an option to make it a default search engine after ios4 update.
2. youtube is blocked in china but the youtube app still comes with iphone/ipad and people can not use it. Apple does not provide any app to replace it.
3. The Chinese Pinyin input became really annoying after the ios 4 update.
4. Apple choose to cut off wifi on the iphones for china rather than adding wapi to them.
Basically, iphone, in China, is a phone that does not give you the search engine you need, does not let you watch videos you like, forces you to use 3G all the time, and annoys you when you type in Characters.
However, iphone 4 is being sold at $1500-2000 recently. iPad is being sold 20% more than the U.S. price and still can be found everywhere.
I can see how better apple products can be sold if they can do some changes (just like they added emoji to japan market) to local markets, not only in China but the world.
I suggest you do some research into modern China (and modern Vietnam for that matter) before making such statements. They seem to be pretty uninformed by assuming that modern communism is like it was in the 1950's.
The richer people of Shanghai (where this store is located) do pretty well these days. There is Plaza 66 for example which has branches of Tiffany's and other top western branded stores. Apple can easily set up a store there.
They should do that.
I hope that this comment about Steve is just what he needs to double and triple Apple's efforts to destroy Lenovo in China! What a chump that guy is to say that. War... plain and simple.